Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1887-07-28
THE IiMES.j
Talk About Trees.


TAX ADOuC 1I000s
From the Home Journal.l
The poet Goethe once drew attention
to the difference in human character
and superstition likely to result from
the surroundings of bright trees like
the birch or the lime, and gloomy trees
like the fir or the yew. But In old
times, when forests were much more
extensive than now, all trees must,
from their mass, have had depressing
inaunce, and every wood must have
been a Black Forest; and the theory
that it is to this very influence that We
mainly owe the origin of our belief, or
old belief, in devils, we'll supported as
it has been shown to be from the re-
lieious fears of the lower races OF the
earth, may now be shown to derive still
further support from tree lore OF mod
ern peasant Europe.
From the Tyrol, from Switzerland,
from Germany or from Brittany, come
we'll ascertained accounts Of the pop
ular belief in certain wild spirits of the
wood, who are painted in all the most
frightful shapes the imagination can
suggest, and are characterized by their
delight in every possible form of NAL
evidence. They kidnsp and devour
children, bewitch the cattle and lead
men to lose their way in the forest.
They can assume any size, from the
most diminutive to the most gigantic;
nor is any form Of bird or beast an i'm
possible impersonation Of them. The
Skongman, the forest-spirit Of Sweden,
is like man, but tall as the highest
tree; he decoys men into the wood and,
when they have hopelessly lost their
way and began to weep for fear, leaves
them with hooking laughter. The
conception is well-nigh identical with
that found among the natives Of the
forests of Brazil, showing with what
uniformity similar conditions produce
similar effects upon the human mind.
But the Russian spirits Ljeschi (from a
Polish word for woody are even more
significant; for not only are the usual
dlabolical attributes assigned to them,
such as the leading Of men astray, or
the sending to them Of sickness: but
also the conventional diabolical features.
Their bodies are after the human pat
tern, but they have the ears and horns
Of goats, their feet are cloven, and their
fingers end in claws. The Russian
wood spirit is, in fact, the devil of
medieval imagination, and nothing
else-fact which strongly supports the
inference that it is from the wind rust
ling over the tree-tops that the idea Of
the supernatural agency Of devils first
took possession of the fertile imagina-
ton of mankind.
It is in no way consistent with this
theory that besides devils Of the forest
there are those of the air or water.
The conception is one that would have
met with no barrier to the extension of
its dominions, and the devil of the tree
or forest would from the first be close
ly associated with, if at all distinguish
ed from, the spirit that moved in the
trees, and was powerful enough to
overturn them. In this way the wild
spirits of the woods would pass insen-
sibly into those spirits Of the air which
were identified with the Wild Hunts
man and the Seven Whistlers.
Truth requires that We should have
these thoughts in connection with trees,
but we may conjure up pleasanter asso-
Citations by way of antidote. We may
dismiss the diabolical aspect Of print.
tive dendrolatry, or theology, and dwell
instead on the share trees have had in
human history as the friends or bene-
factors Of our race. The cypress may
remind US not only Of the tall daugh-
tiers of Etocles, or the youth beloved
of Apollo, but of the temples of the
Persian Zoroaster, before which it stood
IS the symbol Of sacred iire-aame, and
Is the emblem of eternity. For the
latter reason the ancients used to plant
cypress At the birth Of their daugh-
tiers, by way Of wishing them long
life, not, As Signor de Goubernatis sug.
gests, with any reference to their posi-
bic masters in the future. Under the
broad shade Of the plane tree we may
think Of Temistocles, the great Athe-
MAN, who compared himself to that
tree, to which his countrymen would
run for refuge in stormy weather, but